


He Who Has Spoken

by Eliyes



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliyes/pseuds/Eliyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheppard and McKay discuss cyborgs fictional and hypothetical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Who Has Spoken

**Author's Note:**

> There may be some spoilers for movies and series that have been out for several years, and there are a lot of SF references. I double-checked to make sure everything is something you can at least find out a little about on Wikipedia, rather than put a list of everything in here and possibly spoil the fic.
> 
> This story as originally posted on Livejournal August 25, 2007.

 

"No, no, _no_ ," McKay said, waving around a pair of very fine wire cutters, "You're getting it all _wrong_ , Colonel! Deckard was a _replicant_ \-- he was an _artifical being_ \--"

"But what if some of his parts originally came from real human beings?" Sheppard asked, leaning over his P-90 and watching the room's only door. "Wouldn't that make him a cyborg, in the reverse?"

McKay snorted, his arms disappearing into the open wall panel that already obscured his head.

"What, like Wolfe's Jonas? I think not, Colonel. Deckard may have been a _biological_ humanoid, he may even have _thought_ he'd had to have something _replaced_ over the course of his long, unhappy, entirely _fictional_ career in the LAPD, but he was most certainly _not_ a _cyborg._ " His statement was punctuated by a shower of sparks inside the wall. Sheppard didn't budge from his guard/lookout position, since McKay didn't even curse, so it must not have been a bad thing -- although now he thought he could smell burnt hair.

"But if Kryten is considered a cyberorganism just because he has a partially organic brain--" Sheppard started, baiting the scientist. It worked. There was a thunk and then McKay slid out on his back, pushing up his safety goggles just to give him a properly disdainful look.

" _Please_. If you want to bring _Red Dwarf_ into this, we might as well give up all pretense of having a scientific -- or, indeed, logical! -- basis to this conversation right _now._ "

Sheppard gave him a wounded look and McKay snorted and pushed his glasses down, slithering back into the wall. Sheppard always wondered how he did that if he had a bad back. McKay didn't say anything, and after a moment or two of hearing the very faint sounds of him working, he conceded that it was his turn to restart the conversation.

"So, you're saying that you think that his artificial _heart_ \--"

"--is the reason the Borg chose to take Jean-Luc Picard as their Locutus, yes."

"You don't think his captaining a _flag ship_ had something to do with that?"

"If you're asking if I think they were able to determine rank and influence, then yes, I suppose they could have done an analysis of the communications flying around subspace and determined what security code level he was receiving, but I don't think they _cared_ , except in the terms of giving a powerful ship a setback in operations by removing an essential component. But they'd encountered him before and would have seen he was _already_ a cyborg, and thus would be more susceptible to their modifications."

Sheppard shook his head.

"You ever get the feeling that someone on the writing staff was pushing a warped understanding of transhumanism?"

There was a pause, like there always was when he said something McKay hadn't expected him to know. Either that, or McKay wasn't really listening, absorbed in doing some delicate bit of wizardry on Atlantis' systems and letting his mouth move on automatic. It didn't matter, it was a pause, and he took advantage of it.

"I mean, despite what McKibben might say, most transhumanists think that people who don't want to adopt human enhancement technologies should be allowed to make that decision, and their right to make that choice protected -- I think the comparison was the Amish? But the Borg come along and kidnap people and force them to join their collective."

McKay grunted, accompanying a flickering of the lights in the room.

"Even the Amish are considering embracing gene therapy. What about in life-saving situations?" he asked after some muttering and another thunk. "Do you think if you were unconscious and Carson had to give you _bionic lungs_ or something to save your _life_ that he'd wake you up to ask, first?"

Sheppard thought about this.

"No, but he'd probably ask you and Elisabeth. Would you want him to?"

"Keep you alive? If your quality of life would be undiminished, very probably," McKay said absently. "You're very efficacious at keeping us all alive, after all, but then again, you're military and if you don't have an actual _death wish_ , you've at least demonstrated a lemming-like willingness to _sacrifice_ yourself." His voice had gone bitterly sarcastic. "But since you have the best chance of operating Atlantis' defenses, chances are good that Elisabeth would vote to keep you alive any way possible."

"What if you had to put my brain in jar?" Sheppard asked as McKay slid out of the wall again. He hauled him to his feet.

"Please, your brain would _die_ in a jar," he said, hurrying over to an Ancient computer console. His fingers flew over the keys and they lit up, _finally_. Sheppard sagged against the wall in relief as McKay began restoring power to key systems in this section of the city.

"You know what I _mean_. Okay, what if something really horrible happened to _you_ \-- God forbid," he hastily added as McKay gave him a shocked look. "But while your body was mostly unsalvageable, your brain could be saved, put in an artificial body, say, or kept alive and hooked up to a computer so you could communicate."

"Yes, well, I suppose if you couldn't do without my brain--" McKay snapped. His shoulders had hunched and gotten progressively tenser as Sheppard spoke.

"You're always saying we _can't_ ," Sheppard pointed out, unable to picture McKay as just a brain and wondering if he could _really_ communicate without his hands.

"If this is what happens when you read McCaffrey --"

"Nope. Still on Tolstoy."

McKay shook his head, radioing in to Elisabeth that they were ready to move on to the next section and getting an update on the other teams. He started packing up his tools.

"Hey," Sheppard said, straightening suddenly. "You don't suppose there's someone's brain somewhere in the city, running things?"

"I hope not; I've been theorizing it's an AI of some kind," McKay replied, slinging his bag onto his back. "If we find it before Minsky is dead, I'm hoping I can get him clearance so I can tell him."

Sheppard nosed his gun into the corridor. They didn't _know_ that there was anything dangerous around, but experience had taught them to be cautious.

"I didn't know you knew Minsky," he commented.

"We've met," McKay said around a mouthful of PowerBar, in that tone that immediately let Sheppard know they hadn't seen eye-to-eye. He'd come to realise that McKay was much better at playing nice with others now than he was on Earth, scary as that was, and he suppressed a grin, picturing that meeting.

"Seemed like a nice guy to me," he said, moving into the hall, and was rewarded with the sound of McKay walking into the door.

"Why do you _do_ that?!" McKay demanded, and even better than startling him was getting him to _admit_ it.


End file.
